But users didn’t flock to the site or the channel the way Honda had hoped. And while the company still plans to push into digital media, Honda said that building out a central content destination will no longer be a focus of its marketing strategy this year.

A year ago, Honda rolled out plans for an elaborate music-centric initiative dubbed Honda Stage. That program was to be anchored by a website – Hondastage.honda.com – and a YouTube channel where music lovers could regularly gather to watch clips of performances filmed at Honda-sponsored concerts, as well as videos provided by a slew of Honda’s media partners like Vevo and Revolt. The idea was that the its own media properties would be more valuable for marketing younger-skewing cars than purchasing commercial time on TV.

While Honda executives say that the Honda Stage program met its ambitious goal of 2 billion fan impressions across digital, social media and live events, the YouTube channel generated just over 1 million views. Honda does not make subscriber numbers public for the channel, and comScore says the Honda Stage website falls below its minimum of 50,000 unique monthly visitors for tracking audience data.

“We thought that the website and YouTube channel would be a destination, but at the end of the day, people find our content from search [and social media],” said Thomas Peyton, assistant vice president of marketing for American Honda Motor Co. “That was my desire a year ago, to build a music destination, but that isn’t how people want to use us.”

To be sure, Honda isn’t completely abandoning the Honda Stage marketing program. While it’s no longer pushing to attract viewers to its own Web channels, Honda is sponsoring multiple summer concert tours and events over the next 12 months as it looks to further its brand association with music. The company will also continue to produce video footage from the events.

Honda found that in year one of the program, many users found its content through search and through its partners’ channels, like Vevo. And thus, that’s the tactic the brand plans to lean into in year two. For example, this video of artist Ariana Grande performance from a Honda event has generated over 14 million views on Vevo through mid June. Similarly, this Sam Smith performance has over 8 million views through mid June.

Overall, Honda says it generated 100 million organic video views through various digital channels and purchased another 400 million through ads and other outlets, last year.

This time around, the company has a particularly powerful asset to drive the marketing effort. Honda recently signed on to sponsor the tour for band One Direction. The group boasts more than 120 million followers on Twitter and over 33 million on Facebook. If Honda is able to tap into that following, “that’s like buying a Super Bowl spot,” said Mr. Peyton.

Partnerships like the One Direction pact can provide brands a big boost, The reality is that many consumers only want to go so far with their relationship with marketers, which speaks to how challenging it is to build a stand alone media brand, even as more and more advertisers churn out their own content.

Indeed, there may be only so much room for companies like Red Bull, which has successfully bridged the gap between advertiser and media and lifestyle brand. The energy drink company has hosted live events like a live space jump a few years ago, published a magazine and built a YouTube channel that boasts more than 4.2 million subscribers and over a billion views.

As for Honda’s overall media strategy, the company isn’t now planning to pull back on Web video to dial up its overall TV ad spending, particularly when it comes to reaching younger consumers.